Elderly Abuse by Home Carers 'Rising' According to New Report

According to a Freedom of Information request submitted by the BBC Radio 4 programme File on 4 there have been more than 23,000 allegations of abuse against carers working in people's homes across the UK within the last four years.

The United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA), which represents 2,000 care companies, described the findings as "horrifying" and blamed cuts to local government budgets.

The BBC asked every council in England, Scotland and Wales with responsibility for social care for the numbers of allegations of abuse and neglect made against home carers contracted by local authorities. In Northern Ireland, the BBC sent Freedom of Information requests to health and social care trusts.

While only half the councils asked provided data, the requests revealed that between 2013-14 and 2015-16 there had been at least 23,428 safeguarding alerts across the UK.

Most of the alerts reported related to care provided in England with the vast majority being raised about elderly people. More than 9,700 alerts involved people aged over 80 and 164 were about people aged over 100.

Councils were asked by File on 4 for the reasons behind the alleged abuse. They included:

· more than 12,300 alerts concerning neglect

· 2,400 reports of psychological abuse

· more than 3,400 alleged incidents of physical abuse

· more than 400 claims of sexual abuse

It is not possible to find out whether all these reports were valid and fully investigated. File on 4 discovered prosecutions were rare, with just 700 of the 23,428 alerts resulting in police involvement and only 15 prosecutions.

In spite of this, local government ombudsman, Michael King, said there was a growing problem over standards of home care; ombudsman complaints about homecare rose by 25% last year to 372, and 65% of these complaints were upheld.

King told the BBC: "What we see is just the tip of the iceberg.

"We see a whole range of complaints: failure to look after people's personal care needs, helping them with eating, with their own hygiene, helping them with medication, all sorts of day-to-day tasks that people should be getting help with."

In response to these findings a Department of Health official said: "This government has introduced tougher inspections of care services, given councils access to up to £7.6bn of dedicated funding for social care and will continue to challenge local authorities that do not fulfil their duties under the Care Act."

Jump to top